Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : The allocation and cycling of carbon (C) within forests is an important component of the biospheric C cycle, but is particularly understudied within tropical forests. We synthesise reported and unpublished results from three lowland rainforest sites in Amazonia (in the regions of Manaus, Tapajos and Caxiuana), all major sites of the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Programme (LBA). We attempt a comprehensive synthesis of the C stocks, nutrient status and, particularly, the allocation and internal C dynamics of all three sites. The calculated net primary productivities (NPP) are 10.1 +/- 1.4 Mg C ha(-1) yr(-1) (Manaus), 14.4 +/- 1.3 Mg C ha(-1) yr(-1) (Tapajos) and 10.0 +/- 1.2 Mg C ha(-1) yr(-1) (Caxiuana). All errors bars report standard errors. Soil and leaf nutrient analyses indicate that Tapajos has significantly more plant-available phosphorus and calcium. Autotrophic respiration at all three sites (14.9-21.4 Mg C ha yr(-1)) is more challenging to measure, with the largest component and greatest source of uncertainty being leaf dark respiration. Comparison of measured soil respiration with that predicted from C cycling measurements provides an independent constraint. It shows general good agreement at all three sites, with perhaps some evidence for measured soil respiration being less than expected. Twenty to thirty percent of fixed C is allocated belowground. Comparison of gross primary productivity (GPP), derived from ecosystem flux measurements with that derived from component studies (NPP plus autotrophic respiration) provides an additional crosscheck. The two approaches are in good agreement, giving increased confidence in both approaches to estimating GPP. The ecosystem carbon-use efficiency (CUEs), the ratio of NPP to GPP, is similar at Manaus (0.34 +/- 0.10) and Caxiuana (0.32 +/- 0.07), but may be higher at Tapajos (0.49 +/- 0.16), although the difference is not significant. Old growth or infertile tropical forests may have low CUE compared with recently disturbed and/or fertile forests.
ISSN: 1354-1013

hal-01032150
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01032150
DOI : 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01780.x

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD American Association for the Advancement of Science
Résumé :  
Amazon forests are a key but poorly understood component of the global carbon cycle. If, as anticipated, they dry this century, they might accelerate climate change through carbon losses and changed surface energy balances. We used records from multiple long-term monitoring plots across Amazonia to assess forest responses to the intense 2005 drought, a possible analog of future events. Affected forest lost biomass, reversing a large long-term carbon sink, with the greatest impacts observed where the dry season was unusually intense. Relative to pre-2005 conditions, forest subjected to a 100-millimeter increase in water deficit lost 5.3 megagrams of aboveground biomass of carbon per hectare. The drought had a total biomass carbon impact of 1.2 to 1.6 petagrams (1.2 × 1015 to 1.6 × 1015 grams). Amazon forests therefore appear vulnerable to increasing moisture stress, with the potential for large carbon losses to exert feedback on climate change.
ISSN: 0036-8075

hal-01032111
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01032111
DOI : 10.1126/science.1164033

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Nature Publishing Group
Résumé : While Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, the abundance of trees is skewed strongly towards relatively few 'hyperdominant' species. In addition to their diversity, Amazonian trees are a key component of the global carbon cycle, assimilating and storing more carbon than any other ecosystem on Earth. Here we ask, using a unique data set of 530 forest plots, if the functions of storing and producing woody carbon are concentrated in a small number of tree species, whether the most abundant species also dominate carbon cycling, and whether dominant species are characterized by specific functional traits. We find that dominance of forest function is even more concentrated in a few species than is dominance of tree abundance, with only ≈1% of Amazon tree species responsible for 50% of carbon storage and productivity. Although those species that contribute most to biomass and productivity are often abundant, species maximum size is also influential, while the identity and ranking of dominant species varies by function and by region.
ISSN: 2041-1723

hal-01204225
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01204225
DOI : 10.1038/ncomms7857
PRODINRA : 305614
PUBMED : 25919449

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : Sodium, an element which is needed by animals but often toxic in high concentrations to plants, may be deficient and limit animal abundance in inland continental regions, but may be overabundant and limit plant productivity in coastal regions. Here we present data from 50 independent plots (including leaf data from more than 2480 individual trees) showing that leaves in the Amazon basin uptake high amounts of sodium (Na) in a manner more similar to the essential cation potassium (K) than to the toxic cation aluminium (Al). Leaf Na increases linearly with soil Na concentrations, and there is no apparent mechanism for selective exclusion of Na in comparison to K, a key attribute of halophytes. This indicates that the Amazon basin is broadly non-halophytic and increased sodium concentrations in non-halophyte plants often decrease plant productivity. Total Na concentrations are approximate to 10 times higher in coastal regions than inland regions. Such concentration gradients in nutrients may have been reduced in the past because large animals that were abundant in the Pleistocene have been hypothesized to play a large role in reducing nutrient concentration gradients at continental scales. We use a diffusion model and a Na loss rate based on empirical data to estimate that large animals may have moved significant quantities of Na inland away from coastal regions in the Amazon Basin. Therefore, our simple model suggests that large animals may play an important, yet diminishing, role in maintaining the sodium balance of the planet.
ISSN: 0906-7590

hal-01531615
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01531615
PRODINRA : 349612
DOI : 10.1111/ecog.01589

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé :  
Positive aboveground biomass trends have been reported from old-growth forests across the Amazon basin and hypothesized to reflect a large-scale response to exterior forcing. The result could, however, be an artefact due to a sampling bias induced by the nature of forest growth dynamics. Here, we characterize statistically the disturbance process in Amazon old-growth forests as recorded in 135 forest plots of the RAINFOR network up to 2006, and other independent research programmes, and explore the consequences of sampling artefacts using a data-based stochastic simulator. Over the observed range of annual aboveground biomass losses, standard statistical tests show that the distribution of biomass losses through mortality follow an exponential or near-identical Weibull probability distribution and not a power law as assumed by others. The simulator was parameterized using both an exponential disturbance probability distribution as well as a mixed exponential-power law distribution to account for potential large-scale blowdown events. In both cases, sampling biases turn out to be too small to explain the gains detected by the extended RAINFOR plot network. This result lends further support to the notion that currently observed biomass gains for intact forests across the Amazon are actually occurring over large scales at the current time, presumably as a response to climate change.
ISSN: 1354-1013

hal-01032162
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01032162
DOI : 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.01891.x

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD European Geosciences Union
Résumé : International audience
The seasonal climate drivers of the carbon cycle in tropical forests remain poorly known, although these forests account for more carbon assimilation and storage than any other terrestrial ecosystem. Based on a unique combination of seasonal pan-tropical data sets from 89 experimental sites (68 include aboveground wood productivity measurements and 35 litter productivity measurements), their associated canopy photosynthetic capacity (enhanced vegetation index, EVI) and climate, we ask how carbon assimilation and aboveground allocation are related to climate seasonality in tropical forests and how they interact in the seasonal carbon cycle. We found that canopy photosynthetic capacity seasonality responds positively to precipitation when rainfall is < 2000 mm yr(-1) (water-limited forests) and to radiation otherwise (light-limited forests). On the other hand, independent of climate limitations, wood productivity and litterfall are driven by seasonal variation in precipitation and evapotranspiration, respectively. Consequently, light-limited forests present an asynchronism between canopy photosynthetic capacity and wood productivity. First-order control by precipitation likely indicates a decrease in tropical forest productivity in a drier climate in water-limited forest, and in current light-limited forest with future rainfall < 2000 mm yr(-1).
ISSN: 1726-4170

hal-01557759
https://hal.univ-lorraine.fr/hal-01557759
https://hal.univ-lorraine.fr/hal-01557759/document
https://hal.univ-lorraine.fr/hal-01557759/file/bg-13-2537-2016.pdf
DOI : 10.5194/bg-13-2537-2016

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : International audience
ISSN: 0028-646X

hal-01092529
https://hal-agroparistech.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01092529